Minutes – Graduate School Executive Advisory Committee, Oct 27, 2017
Graduate School Executive Advisory Committee
Intro by Emily CoBabe-Ammann
- Intro on teaching and research visioning
- Laying out of fall work
- Role of Committee and Report
Q. What is showing up as it relates to the Graduate School?
A. Many discussions are on the topic of teaching and research, including interdisciplinary teaching and research, and undergraduate research. Changes that come out of those topics would impact the Graduate School and the students.
Comment: We are writing more research grant proposals with decreasing yield. We still get money, but at the cost of burning out those who have to write the proposals. We need to diversify our portfolio of research funding.
Comment: Administration has some resources to invest as seed money with the expectation that the seed will germinate and find its own funding. Instead, we need to commit to our strengths on an ongoing basis.
Comment: Barriers exist to interdisciplinary education and research. It is difficult to determine revenue-sharing models across units. This has resulted in interdisciplinary programs within the humanities being cancelled. But the need for interdisciplinary programs is increasing.
Comment: We should consider interdisciplinary work across campuses. For example, someone may want to get dual degrees in medicine at the Anschutz campus along with a humanities degree from the Boulder campus.
Comment: Students like certificates, but more students would come here if they were degree programs.
Comment: The budget model based on per-credit hours is preventing interdisciplinary programs from succeeding. The model is not viable to support the future of education.
Comment: There is a need to focus on non-academic discovery for graduates. AAU research shows that 60% of doctoral students will not go into academia. We need to prepare our graduate students for a wide spectrum of career paths. Questions that come to mind are:
- What should a dissertation look like?
- Should team and project-based experiences be included (beyond writing skills)?